Posted by Jess
13 August 2010
We were in and out today doing a few errands. The best one was to visit Ella's preschool. The director/head teacher was in the office this week so we asked if we could stop by and take a look around. Ms. Jennifer was great! The school should be good for Ella and is set up like a standard preschool/daycare. There will only be 12 kids enrolled in the school this fall and Ella is the oldest by about 9 months it sounds like. Ella will also be the only one that will be there 5 days a week (her times are 8:30-2:30 M-F). Usually we like to have other kids Ella's age in the class, but it sounds like most of them are around 3 years old, so they are still good playmates. And Ella will be the only student there from 1:30-2:30 everyday so that will be 1 on 1 time with the teacher working on math, reading and writing which will be fantastic for her. Throughout the week they have the typical preschool activities and also mix in Japanese culture/language lessons and music lessons. The school has a playground with an awning so even on rainy days she can get out to play. I am so glad we made the decision for her to go to school while we're here. I know Abby will be looking for her to play with, but Ella really needs the structure and the time working on writing and arts. We do pretty well with incorporating reading and math into everything we do, but when it comes to practicing writing, we're not so diligent! While we were there, we learned that the church (attached to the preschool) has Vacation Bible School next week. We checked with the coordinator and there is room for Ella so from 9-12 every day next week she'll head over. It's about a 10 minute walk from our apartment to the church/school so it should be pretty easy for Jason or I to drop off/pick-up every day.
After preschool, we went to buy mobile phones. This was a long endeavor. The girls were good, but I think its a bit too much to ask for them to sit there for 2 hours! There were a bunch of issues because we don't have all of our documentation yet for living here - it will be another week or so - and the local city office gave us a form to show we've applied for our registration cards, but the mobile phone shop wasn't so sure. So we went through the paperwork, picked out phones, and then she said "this is taking a while to do your background check - do you want to come back?". At that point, this was a good idea! So we left after 2 hours with no phones. Ugh. Ran to a quick lunch and then back the apartment for a Skype date with John, Karen Kari and Chanel in California.
The girls took late afternoon naps while I ran back to the mobile phone shop to pick up my phone. Jay ordered an iPhone so his will be here in a few weeks. I got the "free" phone, so mine I took with me. It's nothing fancy, but it's not too expensive to call the U.S. with so I think that's a bonus. We decided to get Jay an iPhone so he can use things like the translator, compass, and other good navigation apps. While in the store we found out that he can also watch the Twins games on it on the MLB app - a nice bonus for sure. Ok, back to the story - picked up my phone and then went to the grocery store to pick up some dinner items. At home, we made burgers for dinner and then headed out again.
This time we headed across Tokyo Bay on the train to go to Toys r Us. More on Toys r Us in a minute, but I have to say that the views across the bay were so great. We rode past where my office is and it's a total metropolitan area and then you go across the bridge and its kinda like the Navy Pier in Chicago but with more neon. Ok, we saw a smaller version of the statue of liberty, a building shaped like the death star, the Tokyo Tower (a neon type replica of the Eiffel Tower and the tallest structure in Japan) and the tallest ferris wheel in the world. Of course, we forgot the camera. Boo! But I know we will be going back because the pictures you can take at night there are amazing! We'll head back for sure when my sister comes - I want some of those shots for my travel wall!
So why Toys R Us? While we were looking online for baby gates, we noticed a few things in the ad for Toys R Us - first, they have this attachment for a stroller - it's a platform with two wheels that attaches to the back for the older child to stand on - kind of like a ride-behind for a bike. Ella tires out on walks pretty quickly and putting her on our shoulders in this heat is a task for Jay and I, so this should be a great solution for us. The other thing that was in the ad was a really reasonably priced bike for Ella. I had concerns about Ella missing out on this year of bike-riding and some normal "kids stuff" so I was glad to find one reasonably priced. Only issue was that it was too late in the night for them to assemble it so we'll have to go back and pick it up. It was a bit of a haul so I think only one of us will head back to get it over the weekend.
Tomorrow we're planning on taking it easy - they are showing Shrek in the lobby-type area of our apartment complex so we're hoping to go down, watch that and meet some of our neighbors. Ella is a little unsure about going though so we'll see how it goes in the morning. I'll post pictures of the girls rooms tomorrow! Happy Friday, Western World!
Kanpai!
Jess
13 August 2010
We were in and out today doing a few errands. The best one was to visit Ella's preschool. The director/head teacher was in the office this week so we asked if we could stop by and take a look around. Ms. Jennifer was great! The school should be good for Ella and is set up like a standard preschool/daycare. There will only be 12 kids enrolled in the school this fall and Ella is the oldest by about 9 months it sounds like. Ella will also be the only one that will be there 5 days a week (her times are 8:30-2:30 M-F). Usually we like to have other kids Ella's age in the class, but it sounds like most of them are around 3 years old, so they are still good playmates. And Ella will be the only student there from 1:30-2:30 everyday so that will be 1 on 1 time with the teacher working on math, reading and writing which will be fantastic for her. Throughout the week they have the typical preschool activities and also mix in Japanese culture/language lessons and music lessons. The school has a playground with an awning so even on rainy days she can get out to play. I am so glad we made the decision for her to go to school while we're here. I know Abby will be looking for her to play with, but Ella really needs the structure and the time working on writing and arts. We do pretty well with incorporating reading and math into everything we do, but when it comes to practicing writing, we're not so diligent! While we were there, we learned that the church (attached to the preschool) has Vacation Bible School next week. We checked with the coordinator and there is room for Ella so from 9-12 every day next week she'll head over. It's about a 10 minute walk from our apartment to the church/school so it should be pretty easy for Jason or I to drop off/pick-up every day.
After preschool, we went to buy mobile phones. This was a long endeavor. The girls were good, but I think its a bit too much to ask for them to sit there for 2 hours! There were a bunch of issues because we don't have all of our documentation yet for living here - it will be another week or so - and the local city office gave us a form to show we've applied for our registration cards, but the mobile phone shop wasn't so sure. So we went through the paperwork, picked out phones, and then she said "this is taking a while to do your background check - do you want to come back?". At that point, this was a good idea! So we left after 2 hours with no phones. Ugh. Ran to a quick lunch and then back the apartment for a Skype date with John, Karen Kari and Chanel in California.
The girls took late afternoon naps while I ran back to the mobile phone shop to pick up my phone. Jay ordered an iPhone so his will be here in a few weeks. I got the "free" phone, so mine I took with me. It's nothing fancy, but it's not too expensive to call the U.S. with so I think that's a bonus. We decided to get Jay an iPhone so he can use things like the translator, compass, and other good navigation apps. While in the store we found out that he can also watch the Twins games on it on the MLB app - a nice bonus for sure. Ok, back to the story - picked up my phone and then went to the grocery store to pick up some dinner items. At home, we made burgers for dinner and then headed out again.
This time we headed across Tokyo Bay on the train to go to Toys r Us. More on Toys r Us in a minute, but I have to say that the views across the bay were so great. We rode past where my office is and it's a total metropolitan area and then you go across the bridge and its kinda like the Navy Pier in Chicago but with more neon. Ok, we saw a smaller version of the statue of liberty, a building shaped like the death star, the Tokyo Tower (a neon type replica of the Eiffel Tower and the tallest structure in Japan) and the tallest ferris wheel in the world. Of course, we forgot the camera. Boo! But I know we will be going back because the pictures you can take at night there are amazing! We'll head back for sure when my sister comes - I want some of those shots for my travel wall!
So why Toys R Us? While we were looking online for baby gates, we noticed a few things in the ad for Toys R Us - first, they have this attachment for a stroller - it's a platform with two wheels that attaches to the back for the older child to stand on - kind of like a ride-behind for a bike. Ella tires out on walks pretty quickly and putting her on our shoulders in this heat is a task for Jay and I, so this should be a great solution for us. The other thing that was in the ad was a really reasonably priced bike for Ella. I had concerns about Ella missing out on this year of bike-riding and some normal "kids stuff" so I was glad to find one reasonably priced. Only issue was that it was too late in the night for them to assemble it so we'll have to go back and pick it up. It was a bit of a haul so I think only one of us will head back to get it over the weekend.
Tomorrow we're planning on taking it easy - they are showing Shrek in the lobby-type area of our apartment complex so we're hoping to go down, watch that and meet some of our neighbors. Ella is a little unsure about going though so we'll see how it goes in the morning. I'll post pictures of the girls rooms tomorrow! Happy Friday, Western World!
Kanpai!
Jess
9:29 AM |
Category: |
0
comments
Comments (0)